International Citrus & Produce, which is headquartered in Burlingame, CA, but has a substantial presence in the Texas citrus deal, had a very good year and expects more of the same for the 2014-15 season.

President J.B. Cutsinger said he has been selling Texas citrus for more than 35 years and, though it has changed tremendously over the years, it is still an excellent deal with an excellent reputation.

“When I started [selling] in 1976, the deal had over a dozen different shippers,” he said. “It has been shrinking ever since and there are now only three or four shippers.”

Cutsinger calls ICP a buyer/distributor of Texas citrus and said the production from Texas dovetails very well with the company’s other citrus and produce deals. It sources from many different domestic and international production regions but Texas is a mainstay in its citrus program.

He said Texas grapefruit has always had a very good reputation. He was looking forward to the season starting in October and lasting into late spring of 2015. The longtime produce veteran said it appears as if the Texas grapefruit deal for this upcoming year will be similar to last year, which saw good supplies and good demand.

In addition, Cutsinger said Texas oranges have gained in popularity over the last several years. “It’s been a better deal than it was. We had great demand most of the year and expect the same this season.”

Of course, Cutsinger couldn’t talk about the 2014 Texas citrus season without talking about limes. Though the limes are grown in Mexico, most of them come into the United States through Texas and 2014 was a banner year.

Talking to The Produce News on Aug. 28, the ICP executive said the lime market was at $7-14 per carton depending upon size and quality. That puts the wholesale price of a lime at about 6 cents a piece.

Earlier this year, limes were well over $100 per carton with the wholesale price of one lime 10 times greater than it is today.

“About 25 years ago, I remember the lime market getting up to the $70s and $80s (per carton),” said Cutsinger, “but never did it get to the level that we saw earlier this year. It was weather-related and I’m not sure we’ll ever see that again. It was very cash-intensive.”

Cutsinger is expecting a normal year this year with good demand and good supplies.

But as always, Mother Nature will have something to say about how the supply and demand curve works out.

On this day in August, ICP was filling its citrus orders with product from Peru (tangerines and murcotts) coming into the California port of Long Beach, and “we also are doing a little bit of Aussie citrus.”

But Cutsinger was clearly looking to the start of the Texas citrus deal to renew old buying habits that he has been engaging in for the past third of a century.